


sheets unclean

by Afueras



Category: Bandom, Placebo
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-24
Updated: 2014-03-09
Packaged: 2017-12-24 12:41:22
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 4,889
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/940133
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Afueras/pseuds/Afueras
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Brian, he says, and nothing else. The tired figure, Brian, looks up to meet the man’s eyes. They are concerned. He wants to be concerned too, but can’t remember how it should feel. Not like this, he’s sure. He looks past Stef, his friend, the one who has searched all night for him. He looks straight through him. He looks at the dirty grey bricks instead.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

The smell of booze and cigarettes clings to damp alleys, stark black skeletons of buildings rising against a grey sky. A hot wind blows across grimy bricks, and through the murky pools at the edges of the cracked road.

A person sits on the curb, drenched to the bone, whiskey bottle in one dirty hand and cigarette in the other. Old eyeliner caked around bloodshot, shifty eyes, coupled with a black dress (ripped off one shoulder) and shredded fishnets. Lips as red as a gaping wound, a sultry gash in a dirty pale face.

The person breathes. Hollow cheeks, dull eyes.

Slowly the thin hand lifts, bringing the cigarette to deep crimson lips before seeming to realize it is unlit. It hovers in the air, trembling.  
A car pulls up, slams on the brakes. Door thrown open. A tall man unfolds himself and moves around like a frantic marionette, all jerky limbs and broken stride. He grabs the form on the ground, fingers digging into bare shoulders.

Brian, he says, and nothing else. The tired figure, Brian, looks up to meet the man’s eyes. They are concerned. He wants to be concerned too, but can’t remember how it should feel. Not like this, he’s sure. He looks past Stef, his friend, the one who has searched all night for him. He looks straight through him. He looks at the dirty grey bricks instead.

Stef drags Brian upright, gripping his wrist to force the whiskey bottle out of his hand. Oh well, he shrugs. It was nearly empty anyway. The cigarette is gone from his limp fingers too, but he didn’t see Stef take it. He must have dropped it. He wanted that cigarette, wanted the smoky taste on his tongue, the searing heat of a too-deep drag, the fog of calm that settled behind his hollow face with every inhale. He already missed the feel between his fingers, tiny cancer stick to clutch and use as a shield.

Brian is vaguely aware of his tall friend pulling his dress more securely down over his hips and fixing the shoulder straps as best he can. Stef’s arm supporting his midsection is warm and good, but it’s digging in too tightly. He’s going to be sick.

He tries to tell Stefan this, as it passes through his sluggish mind, but only gets as far as turning in his direction. Alcohol and bile run down Stef’s sleeve, propelled with a vengeance from Brian’s wrecked throat. It is followed by tears. Stef just sighs and heaves him closer, wiping his smaller friend’s mouth with his now-filthy sleeve, wiping tears with a gentle thumb.

He touches a couple of kisses to Brian’s sharp jawline and helps him into the backseat of the rusty silver Corolla. Smells of gasoline. Brian won’t notice.

Brian curls around Stef’s steel-grey jacket, breathing the musky scent of car and of other men, and cries. Sitting on the curb he was brave. He misses the curb. He cries himself to sleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There was a bit more to this old fic, but I cut it off here because I plan to eventually finish the thing and post as additional chapters. This seemed like the natural end for the first one
> 
> edit - working title half-stolen from Placebo's Drink You Pretty, the line "smell of crotch and sheets not clean"


	2. Chapter 2

Brian wakes to nothing but darkness. He’s lying on a bed – he can tell that much – and swaddled with wet, sour-smelling blankets. The rank odor of piss and vomit permeates the air, and a vague memory of throwing up on someone surfaces.

He tries to call out, voice coming out in a pitiful rasp of indecipherable sound. Everything hurts. One of his shoulders is uncovered, bare and cold, alerting him to the fact that he’s still wearing his thin dress, and little else.

He can recall scattered parts of last night. Just bits and fragments, like pieces of several different puzzles all shoved together in one box.  
He remembers standing in front of his cracked mirror, unable to look himself in the eyes, deliberately going back to change out of his dress and into a tighter one. 

He remembers being surrounded by people, laughing, the sound disjointed and not matched up properly, like a television with a bad signal.

He remembers music; he remembers his skin burning with the unbearable heat of being touched, soaked with sweat; he remembers vague pain, and wandering, and a drenching rain, and maybe crying some. Mostly, though, Brian remembers the curb. Sitting and drinking until the stars blurred, muggy night air feeling almost cool against his overheated skin. Watching the black expanse above his head start to turn grey, silvery streetlamps winking out with every blink of his gritty eyes.

The bedclothes start to bother him now, filthy and too cold. Muscles contract, making several short, abortive motions with the intention of sitting up, before accepting defeat and rolling awkwardly off the bed and into the floor. Hardwood, cold and dusty, but clean. Pressing his face to it, feeling the cold against his cheek, letting the chill settle into his bones. He breathes.

Brian kneels then, small figure bowed and tired in the pitch blackness. He slips a hand between his legs and there is dampness, but the rancid stink of stale urine is for once reassuring. He prepares for the walk of shame, if his body can support itself, and the crawl of shame if it can’t. It won’t be the first time. 

His chest aches.

Tired limbs move in a jerky drag across the floor. Fingers grope carefully in the dark ahead, searching for doors and meeting them, pulling them open and easing them shut behind.

Outside, it’s night again. There are stairs, and maybe sidewalks, but Brian doesn’t notice. The small man moves in a staccato glide, limping and stumbling with a strange twitchy grace, a smoothness of motion that simply cannot be achieved by trying.

The streets are a blur of black and grey – outlined by burning white storefronts and dusky streetlamps the color of ashes – a study in monochrome. A tired boy in a tired dress are nothing to look twice at. Cherry-red lips wanting for a cigarette, or a bottle to make the pain go away again. His movements speed up, more urgent. He needs to move. This night isn’t hot and muggy; it is sharp and cold and dark without a hint of grey to blanket the edges of the smoggy stars. Goosebumps rise on the man’s bare arms, hands numb with cold.

Drops to his knees. Icy air burning parched lungs, tired eyes stinging and dry. Stef, he says, voice a flat drone like bees buzzing in his own head. Stef.

He needs a payphone, needs some change, needs Stefan to come and get him and fix everything.

He leans against the wall of a building and cries, the tears feeling as though they have frozen even before they drop from his sticky eyelashes, wanting Stef and wanting the sweet burn of liquor to make him invincible again. Make him pretty again.

Need help, girl? A gruff voice. You hear me? You hurt? You can’t be sitting there like that. I’ll call the cops.

Stef, he whimpers. He’s going to be sick. Again. Wasn’t he sick before? Sick down Stefan’s arm. But Stef wasn’t there. No one was there. He had gone without Stef to keep from looking at him. He retches and gags, back heaving, cold damp hair sticking to sweaty face.

I’m calling the cops, girl.

No, no, don’t.

You look pretty bad. Need to go to the hospital? A hint of concern creeps into the gruff tone.

I want Stef. He just wants this person to leave.

Dirty tennis shoes too close to Brian’s face where he now lies curled up on the cold, damp sidewalk, their reek joining his own. What’s the number?

Brian recites it like a stubborn child, sobbing the numbers over and over until he chokes on his own vomit. He’s freezing and exposed and far too hung over and sick to do this. To live. He wants to die. He says so, mixing it with the mangled stream of numbers spilling from his raw, bitten lips.

He’s still rambling when a large hand lifts his head to stroke the filthy hair. Stef sighs, tells the story of the past couple of days in monotone, covers the smaller man with his coat and lifts him like a child. Bare, bleeding feet, still encased in fishnets, swinging in midair. Hair hanging lank and heavy over Stefan’s arm, head lolling, tears streaming in all directions.

Do I have to tie you up? Stefan asks, mostly not joking. There is no answer from the worn-out figure, limp in his arms. Big hazy eyes don’t quite meet his own.

 

This time he undresses Brian, ignores modesty and social mandates, does what he needs to do in the dim piss-yellow light of his bathroom. Strips his friend, bathes the grimy, sweaty skin, washes the tangled mass of hair. Tenderly but firmly removes the excess makeup caked around still-weeping eyes.

The faucet drips, the only sound in his empty flat besides Brian’s harsh breaths and his own steady ones.

Sorry, Brian whispers. I fucked up.

I know.

Stef’s hands are warm and steady and Brian doesn’t feel sick anymore. This doesn’t feel like the flat he woke up in, but everything is falling into place and he doesn’t want to think about it, can’t stand for any more shame and guilt to cloud his mind and push him under.

The bathtub has a slight ring around the bottom. Not a dirty ring – no, one sore and rusty from age and ill use. Dull amber light filters down across its dull surface and lights up the miniscule swirls of dust motes stirred by Brian’s breath. His eyes do not leave them as they eddy and dance, starting to settle before he exhales again and sends their tiny world back into disarray.

Sweaty cheek plasters to the cool side of the tub, heavy head lolls. Body shakes uncontrollably. Stefan’s breaths behind him, quiet and steady, patiently putting him back together. Brian stares into the stark amber light bulb until his eyes ache, and wishes he were dead.


	3. Chapter 3

Stef?

Yes?

Why do you do it? You always come get me. You never leave me. Don’t… don’t ever leave me.

Blue light slants through curtained windows, into the cold still air of the room. Small form sprawls on a ragged but clean sofa, propped on pillows, wearing an oversize T-shirt that isn’t his. Brian’s hair is clean too, but slightly damp underneath with sweat, and he pushes it aside to fan out around his head like a halo. The pillowcases are cool against his neck. His bare legs are spread wide, but Stefan’s shirt reaches his thighs, and anyway they are alone in the flat.

Stefan is silent, chews on his pen across the room, doesn’t turn. Blue ink stains his fingers. Brian suddenly feels very much like a child.

I don’t know, Stef murmurs, and Brian’s heart is frozen painfully for the few seconds until he turns and smiles.

They stare at one another for a long moment, Brian wide-eyed and Stefan still smiling, before Brian sits up and winces at the pain throughout his body. He sits on the edge of the sofa, head down, breathing heavy. He looks up through strands of hair, looks at the blue-draped window and the stripes of cool whitish blue it casts across the dark wooden floor. He rubs the chill from his naked arms and stretches aching muscles.

Where’s my dress?

Threw it out. It was ruined.

Brian stares at him, eyes glassy and dark. Unreadable. He exhales and stands unsteadily, heads to the bedroom to search for clothes. Stef doesn’t follow.

The bedroom is unlit save for the light through the drapes, awash in a darker shade of navy than that of the other room. The small man kneels; he presses lips, then cheek, to the cold floor. Its frigid touch against his flushed skin is achingly familiar. His face rubs against the blue duvet. It smells fresh.

Brian desperately doesn’t want to remember. He wants to go back to his tiny, filthy flat – messy rooms drenched in drugs, steeped in sex – so different from Stefan’s clean space. His flat is hot and close, strewn with clothes and reeking of spilled alcohol. Stefan’s is sparse and wintry and too clean, a blank canvas that sometimes feels good but mostly doesn’t. Brian’s presence is too dirty.

Birds sing outside. A cloud scuds across the sun, causing shadows to move across the floor in tints of periwinkle and cerulean. Brian knows the names of these shades, though he’s not sure how, and he tastes them on his tongue, crisp against his crooked teeth.

Stef enters the room, throwing his shadow across Brian’s bent back. Everything is very, very still.

The clean strips of light have caught the kneeling man’s eyes as they filter down through the curtains, searching for dust motes to illuminate and finding none.

Brian breathes, a steady flow of air in and out, relishing the smoothness of it all; the air here doesn’t smell like smoke and sweat. It isn’t hot or wet, or thick with the heady scent of chemicals, the lush scent of bourbon, the smell of sex. The air here is clean, and it feels good past cracked lips and in sore lungs and in tired souls. 

He turns but doesn’t look at Stef. Just turns half-way to present a profile, a practiced look of bored waiting.

Large, gentle hands lift him by the armpits like a child or a puppy, pull him onto the bed, tuck him into fresh, cool sheets and move across the side of his face as gentle as a chill breeze. Hazy blue eyes meet calm, dark ones.

They say nothing.

Moments drag on like days until Brian rolls away, turns on his side to face the curtained window. Stefan lays a cool hand across his forehead, soothing the ache that had gone unnoticed before.

I’m sick.

The tall man says nothing; his unperturbed silence is taken as invitation to carry on.

I’m sick and I can’t stop doing it. The partying. And the sex. I let people hurt me, Steffie, and I hurt them too. I hurt them. I don’t mean to. I swear I don’t it just happens and then I don’t know what to do and that’s not me, you know I wouldn’t hurt anyone, don’t you?

I know, Brian.

Silence again, and renewed humiliation. Just like a child. The words were all wrong.

I don’t want to, Steffie. I don’t want to anymore. But when I stop, like now, everything hurts. It… it all hurts… I’m tired. Just tired.

Messy hair is stroked back from grey-hued skin, regardless of the cool sweat soaking the strands. Stefan presses a kiss to Brian’s temple. Stay here for a few days, sleep some. You don’t look too good, sweetie.

A mumbled response, and then sleep, again, beneath the clear white light filtering into that blue room.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know that this is pretty much all filler, but this whole work was always really offbeat and experimental; I'm struggling to add any plot at all, while keeping a lot of the original descriptive writing. I promise things pick up in the next bit though.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> tiny filler chapter I'm so sorry lol

A rust-colored sun rises, spreading scarlet rays across the shuddering train.

Windows coated with a layer of grime; patterned yellow wallpaper peeling. Brown leather seats, ripped and worn-out, sag comfortably in even rows down the aisles. A few scattered passengers litter the seats. Tired faces lean against dirty windows. Blank eyes, quiet breathing.

Stefan wants to breathe in tandem with them, join the easy symphony of lungs and rocking train. He doesn’t, though. He breathes with Brian instead, a discordant mess of uneven puffs. Tiny frame wrapped in a blanket, face striped with amber light. If awake, he would cringe away. It would ruin his complexion.

Brian sleeps, at last, with his head on Stefan’s shoulder; drools down the taller man’s shirt and breathes.

The dawn stretches into day, still ruby-shaded and soft, still silent aside from the muted rattling of wheels on tracks and the occasional shuffling of a weary passenger.

Brian opens his eyes when the sun is highest, jaw stretching in a tremendous yawn.

Steffie, he rasps, voice little more than a whisper.

Hmm?

Do you plan to tell me where we’re going?

Not yet, love. You’ll see when we get there.

Brian gives a low whine. Petite frame sags. He drags his legs up underneath him and turns, lying across the tall man and curling into his stomach, pressing his trembling cold hands close for warmth. He buries his face in the heat of Stefan’s shirt, inhales musky sweat and stale tobacco. Body trembles helplessly from withdrawal.

The worst of it is over and done, but he isn’t free yet. He hurts; he needs. He lies still, letting Stef pet his soft black hair, unusually clean and shining. He is tired, so tired. Eyes itch and burn.

 

The day passes, long and hot and sweet, slipping into night. Brian stumbles to the back of the train to find a place to smoke, through dark carriages filled with sleeping people, and reading people, and people who are too damn tired to look twice at a boy in a skirt. The safety lights give off dim orange light.

Stefan’s breathing is loud behind Brian in the empty smoker’s carriage, at the end of the train. They stand in the warm silence and watch ochre night roll by under clacking wheels.

Is it worth it? Brian’s soft murmur is too loud.

Yes. I promise you’ll love it.

Not the trip. Quitting.

Brian, you aren’t quitting. You aren’t quitting anything. You’re just… moving away. Moving on.

Feels like I’m quitting.

Silence stretches on. The train is loud and the draft through the single open window is louder, but the carriage feels utterly noiseless. Quieter than the grey streets, the black-and-white city, the yellow bathroom, Stef’s blue flat.

The small man itches from the stillness. A trembling column of ash breaks away and drifts to the floor.

Y’know I tried quitting smoking, once. Before we met. After college, when I realized life was shit, but it was expensive shit, y’know? And I couldn’t afford to live it. 

Stefan just nods, whether in acquiescence or simple acknowledgement, Brian doesn’t know. Doesn’t know if he cares. He just needs to say the words, say something, anything, to fill that awful silence made of taut nerves and breathing. Lungs ache, head spins. Can’t stop talking, but not sure if he’s saying anything at all.


	5. Chapter 5

Rain comes down in torrents, slapping the ground like endless applause. A grey tint, invisible through the downpour, is the only light in the sky. The train station is deserted. A single yellow bulb highlights the sheets of rain, makes them glimmer in the dark.

Brian shifts, uncomfortable. Picks at his fingernails.

The wooden benches are green-painted, rough and hard. He wants to lie down. Doesn’t want splinters.

How much longer?

Stefan flinches slightly at the nasal whine, spills his drink slightly into his lap. Cherry Coke. Nonalcoholic, benign.

He caps the bottle and swirls the dark liquid. It doesn’t fizz.

I don’t know. He said he would be here before dark, but I guess not.

Brian lets out a petulant sigh, tipping his head back onto the tall man’s shoulder. He has a headache and his joints are stiff. The cold, damp concrete looks appealing.

A car engine growls. Headlights cut through the deluge, and Stefan stands nearly fast enough to dump his small friend on the ground. Brian yelps. Curls up on the warm place where Stefan had been sitting. Fuck splinters.

Stefan tosses his drink into a bin and gathers their things. Waits.

The car pulls up to the station. Greenish-grey, unremarkable. It inches closer until it’s forced to stop by the raised slab of pavement. Still in the rain.

The tall man makes the dash to the vehicle, and doesn’t return straight away. Brian whimpers to himself, wishing he were home between his filthy, stinking sheets, a joint perched in his fingertips and low, throbbing, ambient music pulsing from the stereo in the corner. Familiar.

He wants Stef to come back. He aches for things he can’t have. Can’t. Hair making a black curtain over his face, Brian doesn’t see his friend return. Feels himself being picked up and flinches.

Shh, not much farther to go tonight. Just a short drive.

The petite man goes limp in steady arms. Breathes the scent that is Stefan, warm and clean. He barely feels his body being carried and rested in the back of the car. It’s all a blur of cold wetness to dry warmth, curling into Stefan’s damp side and feeling an uncomfortable flush spread across his face. Hot air whistles through chapped lips. The car is dark.

The driver is an old man. Wispy white hair, lit faintly yellow by the dim lights through the windshield, smeared by rain.

Stefan and the man converse quietly. Swedish, probably. It all sounds like nonsense to Brian’s ears, echoing in his pounding head.   
The car seats are oddly patterned velour. Not leather. Brian is grateful. He feels ill again. Really ill. Cold, sticky leather would be worse, maybe. He sits up, tries to struggle from his coat. Too warm, head spinning – he feels Stefan try to help, but the touch _hurts_ – and everything fades through greyscale and into black.

 

 

Stars burst before Brian’s eyes, red and orange hues that make him retch. Voices sound inside his head and outside. He claws at his face, pulls his hair. Things touching, _touching_. He retches. Brain made of explosions. Can’t breathe. Can’t move. Feels like his heart is being squeezed in a thousand directions.

Body shudders uncontrollably, flops about like a rag doll. He feels it. Like that helpless shaking you get after vomiting, times a thousand. Like a seizure, or a dozen. Hands grasp at his body, his clothes.

Sick, so sick. Never was sick like this. Never like this.

Days of paper and glass, burning and slicing into his shattered mind.

 

 

Something cool and soft ghosts across Brian’s hollow face, drawing him out of restless dreams. Turns his head feverishly, feels a pillow under his hair. The bed is soft, and his bones don’t hurt so much now. A soft voice, not Stefan’s, hums quietly as the chill of the wet cloth soothes his forehead.

Hush, now.

Not a voice he knows. Gentle, though. Like the touch of a mother. He breathes. Eyelids flutter, bruised pink.

Shh. You’ve been ill, just rest. Rest.

The voice, like a cool, velvety lullaby, eases him back into sleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It all seems repetitive right now, I know.  
> I didn't proof this; pardon my errors


	6. Chapter 6

Soft rose-shaded sunlight through closed white curtains. Smooth white sheets. Dark bedposts.

Brian’s eyes flicker open, take in the empty room and his place in it, slide shut again. Fingers clutch absently at cold fabric, mindlessly opening and closing. He turns over on his side, feels his stomach churn. Freezes.

When he moves again, it is with caution, and the nausea abates. Head throbs once or twice. His mouth is dry.

The door opens. An older woman enters. Kind, dark eyes sharp in a soft face. The small man knows her voice before she speaks, remembers it clearly through the sickness, holding his hair and cradling his fragile mind.

The woman sits at the end of the bed. Brian looks at her. Wants to talk, but too tired. Tries and can only rasp.

She fetches him a cup of water and feels his forehead. Her hand is cool.

Brian’s throat seizes against the water. Fights past it. He swallows deeply and feels the liquid ease his burning voice enough to speak, to ask her where Stefan is. Wants to know whose house this is, but doesn’t want to push. He feels safe enough with her. She has the same kind eyes as his friend.

Stefan is downstairs eating. He stayed with you for a long while, until we made him leave. 

Gentle wrinkles form as she smiles. He stares. Concern wakes in her features.

Did Stefan tell you where you are?

I, no… no, he wouldn’t say.

Oh… well, then. I suppose I need to introduce myself. I am Stefan’s mother. His father fetched the two of you from the station, though you were sick. I don’t know if you remember him.

Breathing stops. Stefan’s parents. How could he do this?

Stefan’s mother passes her cool hand across his forehead again and leaves with a soft look. Doesn’t make him answer. He can’t answer.

Eyes catch a bin a few feet away, across the room. The small man dives for it, reaches it just in time. He sweats and retches and shakes. Lies on the floor, cradles his legs close in weak arms. How could he? How could Stefan do it? Why?

Brian presses his ear hard to the floor and hears voices below. Soft, Swedish voices with lilting accents and quiet tones. He hugs himself tighter, tries to breathe.

Why, Stefan?

Footsteps on the stairs. Brian knows whose they are. Turns glazed, teary eyes to the doorway. His tall friend stares back. Takes in the sweaty curls, bleary eyes, childlike drooping of the beautiful mouth.

Why?

Stefan pads across the floor. Crouches down, bends to reach eye-level with his tiny friend. Places a large hand on his back.

You’ll understand sometime, Brian. Not now, but sometime.

The ebony head droops. Stefan cards his fingers through soft, shining hair.

They like you.

Brian sniffles. Wipes his nose on the back of his hand, feeling pathetic. Struggles not to cry. His back hurts.

Come downstairs, have some food. We can talk later. They’re not going to make you talk, if you don’t want to.

Brian nods. Marshals his aching bones, and lets Stefan pull him up from the floor.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I feel like the chapters are getting progressively shorter, and I'm sorry. I like this story but have no vision for it.


	7. Chapter 7

True to Stefan’s word his parents are silent. The large oak table is cast with golden light through the bay window. Soft gazes, inoffensively pointed at furniture or walls, and the soothing sound of coffee being sipped.

Brian fidgets in his chair, picks at nearly-gone nail varnish. Would bite his fingernails but knows that Stefan would pull his hand from his teeth and lock it away in his large ones, leaving Brian with nothing with which to occupy himself.

The clock ticks, too loud and too quiet.

Stefan’s father leaves with a nod and a kind smile. Puts on a hat and coat before he goes out the door. Brian wants to curl up into Stefan’s warm side, crawl inside him and never come out. Doesn’t want to sit hereand ache, jerking, twitching, spasms which make his friend’s hand come out to steady him. A pointless action. Stefan always draws it back too soon. Brian wants to feel it on his skin, feel something concrete.

The woman, Stefan’s mother, is gentle and calm. Like Stefan. Like this house. Airy and light, heavy grounding furniture and warm rugs on the cool wooden floor.

Nothing is said. Breathing fills the silence.

She leaves like the father had left, with another sweet smile and tilt of the head that makes tears sting Brian’s dry eyes. His cup is long empty.

Stefan pulls him into the tawny living room, onto a leather couch gone soft with wear. Faint smell of peppermint. Stitches coming undone. Brian presses his cheek to the back of it, wishes he could sink through.

Bri, you know why I brought you here?

A shake of the feminine head. No.

Listen, what do you hear?

Nothing.

Exactly. It’s calm here, baby. You need a rest. 

Why wouldn’t you tell me? A plaintive note to the nasal whine.

You wouldn’t have come.

Brian can’t disagree with that. He looks out the window. Tall, dark trees. Slim grey ones. Blue sky, grey at the very edges, like the field of his mind and scope of his fading vision. An ache in his lower back that’s persisted for a few weeks.

Stefan’s movements catch the corner of Brian’s eye. He doesn’t turn to look.

An arm reaches around the narrow shoulders, gives them a squeeze that begins and doesn’t ever quite end. Birds chirp outside. Calm after the storm, or the eye of it.

~*~*~

Day progresses uneventfully. Quiet humming from the other rooms and the memory of soft, aged hands on a porcelain face.

Napping without any sleep, rest without any regulations. No powder, no drink, no shrieks and cramps and feverish illness. Only Stefan, loyal Stefan, and his large cool hands through Brian’s hair and across his back. Pianist’s hands. Calloused but not rough.

Cool air wafts through the window, bringing the afterglow of rain and a new afternoon mist that shades the day in green.

Stefan?

Hmm?

Brian shakes his head. Didn’t want anything, not really. Just wanted to hear his name come from those lips, without asking. Wanted to know that he was real, that this was real. This place.

Afternoon fades into the deep violet-blue of evening. Dinner in the half-dark, doors open and candles lit like something out of a film or a fairytale. Shadows cast by encroaching trees across the china plates, greyness of the sky melting into a purple shroud for the room. Dishes are cleared and Brian’s head is full of static, so that if anyone had spoken to him, he doesn’t know. Can’t hear anything. Can’t hear his own breathing. The blue evening is looking in.

Stefan’s hand in his leads them both outdoors, lighting a yellow lantern, counterpoint to the jewels of near-night.

Sitting on the ground, dampness soaking through jeans, Brian holds his breath. Clutches his friend’s hand. 

Stefan?

Brian.

He exhales.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry about the deterioration of quality.


End file.
